WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

Oxi

Oxi is essentially cocaine and petrol. That’s gasoline for our language-challenged cousins over the water. Lots of things are being said about it right now: that it emerged in the 80s, that regular use of it gives you a life expectancy of about a year, that oxi users can be spotted by the fact that they’re apparently passing you on a tidal wave of their own diarrhoea. But what struck me was this:

Despite growing concern, authorities admit the exact nature of oxi is a mystery. "Oxi’s existence has only come to our attention very recently," said Elenice Frez, the police chief in Assis Brasil, a tiny town on the border between Brazil and Peru that is a notorious route for traffickers. "It is a new thing and we don’t yet have all the technical details of what oxi really is and the damage it can cause to someone who becomes addicted and uses it constantly."